"Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way" – Charles Bukowski

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I am back. I am back from what has been the most challenging trials of my life so far. My marriage was deteriorating rapidly in 2017 and the toxic lifestyle also affected my performance at work. I would come to work and sit in front of my computer screen and literally produce nothing for the day, it was like I was just waiting for someone to relieve me of my position. With all the insanity going on over the past 4 months I continued to see my counselor, I visited a new doctor and was prescribed different medications. No matter what I did there was no temporary relief, nothing seemed to help and one day I came to the end of my rope. On that day looking at myself in the mirror, I knew of my two options:

Option one: Let go of the rope, forget myself or who I was and everyone around me. Possibly fall into some addiction or habit that would lead to a quicker end. To separate myself from all that I know and simply fade as quickly as possible.

Option two: Say fuck this and start climbing back up. To say fuck everyone in my way who has nothing to offer that is positive and lifting. The challenge of this climb is for only me to complete, I commit to it without any other option but success. To start anew, allowing the sun to rise and cast its warming brilliance on my face one more time.

I am here writing this blog so as you can guess option two was chosen, though option one was more appealing I found that I still had some grit left in me. Not sure how there was any left, it must be engrained within me because I was able to find it and come back from the fray. Since then I have continued to improve for myself, I know that there is nothing that I can do for anyone without fixing myself first. I was tired of being one of the medicated, I no longer knew if it was my depression or the meds that made me feel so damn bad.

I have always accepted the fact that I came from a broken family and had witnessed atrocities that somehow molded me. I accepted that my mother’s side of the family gene pool was riddled with mental disorders, including a suicide here and there. My father’s side was just as troubled so I believed that I was a product of my environment and that I was genetically flawed, something that was impossible to change.

So I accepted who I was and what dispositions I had and knew that the odds were I wouldn’t ever achieve happiness, or truly find my voice.

I said fuck the bridges, burn them there is no option of return. A change occurred, in that moment when I decided to take control and refuse to accept what I felt my past created, what was in my genetic make up. I refused to continue to walk through this life missing out of each minute of opportunity to achieve greatness. I refuse to continue to welcome death earlier than later. I refuse to gently go into that good night.

I am not sure what I will do with this Blog now. I no longer accept this as being a daily battle because I am breaking through the fucking gate and taking the castle each day. Each day I will continue to strive towards goals and accept failures as a they come.

IF you struggle as many others do, start each day with an idea, an idea to work on yourself. The link below will take you to a self help book I highly recommend.

I stepped away from blogging for nearly a year, not sure why really. 2017 was the most challenging year so far in my life. There were so many walls to climb that took great effort. My last post was in April of 2017 I believe, my spirits were high and moving forward in a positive way was the only option for me. Shortly after posting that blog, I spiraled even deeper into depression. I did well for some time after stopping my medications, but eventually my marital problems, work, and daily life challenges quickly chiseled away at my ability to cope and function at a healthy level. I found myself back in the doctor’s office nearly begging for a medication to pull me out of this rut I was in, the depression and anxiety had reached a whole new level. I truly believed that I could manage without medications, that I could surround myself with positivity and focus on the good things in life and I could keep the dark days of depression at bay. Unfortunately, I was unable to do so, I resigned to the fact that I could not, for me to be able to continue to be a father and husband and provide for my family I needed to get back on the antidepressants. Through trial and error I found a drug that works well with me, I am finding interest in things that I enjoyed in the past and I feel like I am a better person as well. I am not going to lie and say that my marriage still does not suffer, it does. My wife has been diagnosed with depression and ADD so it’s challenging for the whole family. I think that eventually I will delete this blog about depression, I do not find that I have much to say about it anymore. I do not want to be another blogger who whines about life and the struggles, ive done enough of that already. So here’s to you and to me!

There have been many times I’ve sat alone at a restaurant and observed my surroundings. I would see a father with children , clearly his court allotted time with them so he sits there and makes the best of a dinner after a long day at work.

I left the gym one evening and decided to eat at a pizza place that had a buffet. I watched a mother sit there with 4 children while they bounced around with little to no worries and the mothers face showed the hours of work she’d endured and the lack of time she had to prepare a dinner. She was tired and possible beaten mentally that night, I could see the surrender in her face.

It breaks my heart when I see these lives in whatever form they are in. You know there is a major battle they are fighting within to make it through the day . I want to be able to walk up and comfort in some way but I know I have nothing to offer to someone who’s fighting their own fight.

I now find myself on the brink of the same situation. Children confused, wife not content and all I can do is continue to work and smile as if all is fine.

Will I be that dad sitting there with his children and some other soul watching me maybe wondering about what caused me to be in that situation?

Will my wife be the woman sitting there with two children bouncing around enjoying a pizza dinner while she dwells upon what life has become?

Where do you turn when there is no specific direction? No specific destination or a helping hand to point the way?

The next move is on faith, and that the footing will hold and not give way to something less complete.

Faith has led many down the wrong path so we know that it is a gamble, a hollow word that feels full when you first hear it.

Each wrong turn strips you down until you are bare and no longer have the strength to fight for yourself.

The question you must ask yourself am I able to make the next turn? Is there any grit left in you to pull yourself back up once more, bare you may be and weak you admit to yourself there is no specific direction.

You find hope and resolve and then in an instant it is gone. I find that in my life this seems to be case all too often. Weighing the options though there are few. There comes a time when you must surrender, not all battles can be won. By surrendering you may save a piece of you that you recognize. If you continue it can become consuming and all that will remain is a shell of what once was.

It’s truly a waste of a good thing, even though we not see any good at all. Someone out there sees the good in you, don’t allow yourself to lose it all.

My spouse and I reached another boiling point this past weekend. It was one of those meltdown types where I sit there calm listening as she hollers and threatens. I no longer explode and argue back, i literally cant do it anymore.

As she cries and packs her bags the kids sit and observe all of this mayhem. She hits the door and I do not want to stop her. As she speeds away out of the neighborhood I try and change the subject at hand with my 7 & 8 year old. As the day wears on they ask where is mom, when will she be back? Later in the evening when they ask all I can say is soon but as I lay them down to sleep they ask again and I tell them in the morning.

I lay awake and toss and turn, eventually going to sleep only to wake an hour later sweating under the sheets. I walk out into the living room and sit in the darkness, the quiet surrounds me and I feel worn as if ive been a book that has been read too much, the spine splitting and the pages stained, some missing.

Morning comes and my children ask “where’s mom”? Once again I look at them with reassurance that soon she will be home. This continues throughout the day, eventually the wife comes home looking worn as well.

A day goes by with little talk, an evening after work I climb into bed around 730 and she approaches me to ask what is the plan, or the future of us. I laid there and spilled my thoughts out on to her. I apologized for wasting so many years of her life and that she deserved to be happy. I also apologized for being an unhappy person, and after 10 years of marriage and all of the effort she has put in to making me happy was all in vain. I will always remain unhappy even though there is so much to be happy for.

My suggestion was while she still had youth on her side she should find someone who appreciates her efforts. After the talk, she walked out of the bedroom tears flowed from my eyes, this hasn’t happened in years. I cried for her, for all we’ve done to each other, all the suffering, the needless suffering, time cannot be given back.

My fear is what happens to me when I finally sit alone, after she finally quits, throws in the towel. What will I become? I fear that the dark pit of depression will continue to grow and swallow me whole.